This invention relates to life saving gear for boats and more particularly to an emergency rescue buoy device flotation device which is equipped with life saving and signalling equipment.
In the last two decades, people have taken to waters for recreation by the hundreds of thousands. Most of the watercraft owned or used by these recreationists range from about 18' to 30' in length and operate in the same waters that were once used exclusively by much larger vessels.
The safety equipment for these smaller boats has been substantially ignored. At present, standard safety equipment consists of Coast Guard required signal devices such as air horns and flares and safety items such as life jackets. Larger vessels carry survival suits and inflatable rafts. These items are impractical for the small boat owner because of the space required, the weight added, and/or the extremely high costs involved.
The two primary concerns to the small boater when he has to abandon his vessel are first that the persons on board when they go into the water stay together as a group and, second, that they be able to draw attention to themselves so that they can be rescued. Staying together has been proven to be one of the key factors to survival in time or times of crisis. The most important time to have signaling devices available is when a person is in the water. In too many cases, in small boat accidents, rescue, life saving or signaling devices go down with the boat.
Most known rescue buoys are designed to mark the location of a sunken vessel. For that reason, they are usually complicated, large and heavy and thus unsuitable or too expensive for use on small craft. Other rescue buoys feature beacon or locator radio signals. These do not offer enough protection since only Coast Guard vessels and a few other craft would be equipped to pick up the signals. Since small vessels are usually near land or other vessels, it is preferable to have flare guns, smoke flares or the like to attract attention. This is so because most people in distress are rescued by other boats in the area and not the Coast Guard.
Among the prior art patents which were considered with respect to this invention were U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,206,713; 1,273,522; 1,372,591; 2,366,303; 3,095,586; 3,181,135; 3,618,150; 4,033,002; 4,195,380; and 4,228,556. Foreign patents are Canadian Patent No. 849,286; British Patent Specification No. 1,559,901 and French Patent No. 1,455,619. None of the referenced patents, either domestic or foreign, was found to be particularly pertinent to the details of this invention.